Trip to Woody Creek brings me as close as I want to Hunter Thompson

WOODY CREEK — I was told never to meet your heroes. You’ll always be disappointed. That’s why I’m glad I never met the man whose books once made a flight attendant tell me to stop laughing so hard or I’d get thrown off the plane.

Hunter Thompson was a tragic genius. Johnny Depp, his good friend, called him “the most important writer of the 20th century.” I agree but his celebrity turned him bitter and, from what I’ve read, occasionally anti-social. I can’t blame him. I’d be tired of people doing what I did Thursday afternoon: drive up from Aspen to see Owl Farm, his home here in Woody Creek.

Instead of tracking him down to sit at the feet of my literary Yoda while he was alive, I do the next best thing. I go to Woody Creek Tavern. Built in 1980, it became famous in Thompson’s books as his hangout where he’d hold court with various politicians, actors, celebrities and whatever locals happen to catch him in a good mood.

I made my third pilgrimmage here on Thursday’s drive from Aspen to Beaver Creek for Stage 4 of USA Pro Challenge. The food is too good for the tavern to be called a dive. My tilapia sandwich was fabulous and the place is famous for its margaritas. But inside looks like the inside of a freshman dorm room of a guy who has been a freshman for three years.

A leopard print rug covers the floor. Christmas lights string across the ceiling from where a glass disco ball no longer revolves. Snapshots (remember those, folks?) cover nearly every inch of wall space. Your eye doesn’t go too far without seeing a Hunter Thompson image. There’s a beautiful lithograph of Thompson, in a rare solemn moment. There are famous shots, such as the Rolling Stone cover of him reclining on a motorcycle wearing short tennis shorts and knee-high socks, his signature cigarette holder pursed in his lips. Another has him in his younger years, when he looked serious hulking over his typeweriter in the ’80s, back when he called Richard Nixon “a crafty little ferret.”

He once said sportswriting is one of the toughest jobs in journalism “because you’re dealing with illiterates.”

I wonder if he’d like cyclists. He was famously unathletic. He looked fit and trim through major drug and alcohol abuse to the point where he’d go days without eating. But he might admire cyclists’ honesty, their appreciation of European culture and their general liberal bent.

I felt horribly sheepish looking for his house. The address is vague on the Internet so I went to the bartender after buying a T-shirt and said, “I hate to ask this because I’m sure you’ve been asked a million times but where is Owl Farm?”

He didn’t look up while giving me a rote response that should be on a recording at Woody Creek Tavern: “It’s up the road. That’s all I can say. We’re sworn to secrecy.”

“I understand. I don’t blame you.”

In respect to Hunter, I won’t give directions. But I will say it’s not difficult to find — if it’s the one I think it is. You’ll notice it when you see up the hill a big house surrounded by dozens of signs reading, “Keep Out,” “Please Respect Our Privacy” and “Beware of Dog,” among others. A collage of American flags hang on a telephone poll. A wood log fence prevents anyone on the road below from seeing much more than the rooftop.

Still, as I drove down toward I-70 and the road to Beaver Creek, I kept thinking of the one Hunter Thompson line that has stayed with me since moving to Denver in 1990: “At the top of the mountain we are all snow leopards.”

I felt the same way. I covered one of Hunter’s Aspen trials for the Rocky Mountain News. He and I went barhopping after. It ook me days to get rid of the hangover. Every bar we went into the bartender would set up drinks no charge. When I phoned my story into the Rocky from the pay phone booth in the Hotel Jerome lobby, the only thing I remembered about the call was the Rocky guy saying at the end of it, “This sounds pretty weird, Sterling.” Next morning I ran down to the newspaper racks frantic, no idea what I’d dictated. I felt like I’d been one of the victims in Hunter’s stories. Though he and I had really hit it off, southern roots and all, I had no desire to drink with him again or even to hang out with him. Yet I couldn’t wait to read his next book. I think it was the one about runners in Hawaii. Sterling Greenwood, retired publisher, Aspen Free Press

Bull

That’s funny I did the same thing went to woody creek tavern and asked where owl farm was and the bartender said you must be a Hunter hunter! Lol Bull Tieman St Charles MO

AspenFreePress

Woody Paige and I drove out to Owl Farm one sunny afternoon in the mid-eighties. Paige wrote a knockout column about it. He and I had become friends when we were reporters fat The Commercial Appeal in Memphis in the wake of the King assassination. Sterling Greenwood/greenwood@aspenfreepress.com